Three questions from a newbie (rename folder / create playlist / square artwork)

MusicBrainz Picard
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Hi!
Let me introduce myself by asking three questions that I haven’t been able to answer myself after having searched this forum:

How can I make Picard renaming the folder that the files are in?

I’ve learned how to make Picard rename the files it processed, but I also want the folder that contains the files to be renamed.
E.g.: Albumartist - Album

How do I make Picard create a static m3u playlist file?

So I mean I would like to have Picard creating an m3u file (m3u8 to be precise) in the processed folder, referencing all the music files it contains.

How do I make Picard retrieving album art that is useful and tailored towards music players?

By useful I mean that as we all know, pretty much all music players are optimised to display square albumart.
(With a (sensible) resolution anywhere between 600 and 2000 I guess)

I am personally not concerned if the artwork is verified to come from some specific physical medium.
I don’t care if I am able to see the limitations of printers, scanners, dust, scratches, crackled paper, etc.
I do care about artist intent and practical usability.

So, is it possible to retrieve square, high quality album art that values artist intent and usability, without getting non-square images that are marked by physical flaws and other limitations that I don’t care about?

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To get square artwork at high quality, use the digital medium releases. If they don’t exist, best option is to add the Apple Music release to the database via a-tisket and then upload the hi-res digital artwork for that release and use that release for tagging. You can also set Picard to use the release group cover art as most use a digital version when available. You can also change release group to use digital cover art instead of physical release scans. I don’t use Picard for file naming or playlists, so don’t no the anser to that.

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Welcome!

1, Renaming Folders

Make sure you have ‘Move files’ checked under Options in Picard, then the files will be moved into new folders:

image

You can edit the default file (and folder) naming script (if you want to - it is already Album artist / (Year) Album) by going to Options > File Naming > Edit file naming script
If you want help with changing the script I would start with the tutorial, and then post any specific questions here :+1:

2. Creating m3u files

I have never tried this, but there is a plugin in Picard > Options > Plugins > Generate M3U playlist

There’s a related forum thread here, apparently it’s a bit annoying to use. Give it a shot, and feel free to post here with further questions.

3. ‘Best’ artwork

@Tigerman325 already answered this excellently, but to be more specific:
Go to Picard > Options > Cover Art, and then in the ‘Cover Art Providers’ box you can rearrange the priority of which cover art Picard will use.

In your case you want to drag ‘Cover Art Archive: Release Group’ above ‘Cover Art Archive: Release’:

image

Now it will use the ‘release group’ image, which should be the ’nicest’ cover of all the releases.

If you are still getting a bad cover you can go to the release group (in the MusicBrainz website, not Picard), and then click ‘set cover art’ on the right, to set the best one for tagging. This always has to be done manually so don’t be surprised if nobody has done it yet.

If there is no nice cover at all you can add a new, usually digital, release (to the MusicBrainz website) that has a nice cover available, add the cover, and then set it as the release group cover. A bit of effort but a great contribution to the database :ok_hand:

Hope that helps!

p.s. please please test script and setting changes on a copy of your files first. Removed or replaced tags and folder are not salvageable.

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In Options > File Naming" you need to enable “Move files when saving” and set the target directory to the base folder where you want the folders for the albums to be created.

The default file naming script will create a folder hierarchy “Albumartist/Album”. If you want to have a single folder with album artist and album separated by " - " then change the / between both in the default naming script with -. Maybe something like this:

$if2(%albumartist%,%artist%) - %album%/
$if($gt(%totaldiscs%,1),$if($gt(%totaldiscs%,9),$num(%discnumber%,2),%discnumber%)-,)$if($and(%albumartist%,%tracknumber%),$num(%tracknumber%,2) ,)$if(%_multiartist%,%artist% - ,)%title%
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In addition what was suggested above you can also use the Fanart.tv and/or TheAudioDB cover art plugins, which you can install in Options > Plugins. After activating the plugins you need to save the options once to actually get them activated, then go back into the options and configure those providers in Options > Cover Art.

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And move them to the top of the list of enabled coverart providers so that they are checked before the release and release group providers.

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